Concurrent engineering: an expert system for fixture design

Concurrent engineering is based on the organisation of the different stages of the production cycle in order to shorten the time to market. Within this context, fixture design is crucial: the fixture is the major link between the machined part and the machine tool with a strong influence on the part quality, manufacturing delays and costs. Production process difficulties are focused on the fixture design. The links of the fixture design with the other stages of the production cycle and the general design make difficult to apply the concurrent engineering concepts. This paper focuses of the development of a fixture designers´ support. The authors present a structuring of the design method and expression of the trade rules in the expert system formalism. The support tool is used at the different steps of fixture design and it allows to build parallel solutions. This tool, called SEACMU, seems to be significant means to promote fixture design in concurrent engineering